Although the US-China trade dispute affected the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE), trading sentiment among domestic investors remained high in the second quarter of this year, with the number of “big players” increasing from the previous quarter, statistics released on Wednesday last week showed.
A total of 1,579 “big players” participated in the main board, 444 more than in the first quarter, TWSE tallies showed.
A “big player” is defined as an investor who trades at least NT$500 million (US$16.36 million) in shares on the TWSE in a single quarter. Such figures are seen as an important indicator of investor confidence in the TWSE.
The number of retail investors with quarterly turnover of between NT$100 million and NT$500 million increased by 2,875 investors from a quarter earlier to 12,553 in the second quarter, while those with quarterly trading below NT$100 million totaled 2.17 million investors, an increase of 10,254 from last quarter and the highest number since the third quarter of 2011, the TWSE data showed.
The high participation of big players and the increase in retail investors were an indication that investors remained confident in local equities, after the TAIEX benchmark closed above 10,000 points on May 23 last year and has since remained above that mark.
Increased investor participation coupled with a cut in the transaction tax for day trading, which halved the tax from 0.003 percent to 0.0015 percent, saw average daily turnover on the main board in the second quarter reach NT$145.761 billion, a 8.8 percent increase from the first quarter’s NT$139.976 billion, the TWSE data showed.
The proportion of retail investors continued to expand in the second quarter, accounting for 62.05 percent of turnover on the TWSE, compared with 58.33 percent in the first quarter, the data showed.
Trading by foreign institutional investors made up 24.05 percent of turnover on the main board in the second quarter, down from 26.01 percent in the first quarter, while trading by domestic institutional investors declined from 15.66 percent to 13.31 percent over the same period, the data showed.
On the back of boom market turnover, the January-to-June tax data compiled by the Ministry of Finance showed that revenue from securities transaction taxes grew 37.4 percent from a year earlier to NT$53.2 billion, the highest level for the six-month period in nine years.
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